Trapped
by adorable pragmatism
Summary: Tigress is a ruthless villain that works with Deathstroke. She doesn't care about the lives of heroes, Nightwing included. But Artemis does care, and inside she is screaming because, no matter how injured her friend is, she isn't allowed to help him.


A/N: Wrote it for traught week on tumblr and it's really angsty and umm...

My traught never ends up romantic.

Warnings for blood and injuries and angst and why did I write this

* * *

Artemis can't look.

There is a lot of blood. She knows that. And she can't bear to see it.

But she isn't Artemis right now. She's Tigress, a vicious fighter and not one to shy away from the sight of a hero's blood.

Someone who shouldn't care about the life of Nightwing and wouldn't mind crushing him like a bug under her heel.

So she crosses her arms and watches with what she prays is a smug and apathetic expression (instead of a distressed and nauseated one) as Deathstroke pulls the red-streaked sword up out of Nightwing's leg slowly, _slowly_, as slow as possible to draw out every barely-stifled gasp of pain, every wince, every tremor while blood begins to pool on the training room floor.

Artemis tries not to remember their sparring sessions and how she would throw Nightwing (Robin, back then) down to that floor and they would laugh as he got right back up on his feet and they started all over again, but that isn't what's going to happen here. This is real.

And Tigress shouldn't remember that, anyway.

Anyone else would be screaming. Nightwing is biting his lip, his entire face contorted, as he tries to stop from crying out, but still a small noise gurgles deep in his throat, a note of agony that makes Deathstroke step back, satisfied.

Nightwing curls in on himself and clumsily tries to stem the flow of blood with his hands, but he's too weak to apply enough pressure.

His eyelids are fluttering as he forces himself to keep from passing out. Deathstroke ripped off Nightwing's mask just a minute earlier, when the hero finally collapsed at their feet, too hurt to fight any longer.

Cracked (possibly broken) ribs, fractured ankle, multiple serious lacerations to arms, abdomen, back, _everywhere_, and now the stabbed leg… Some of the injuries are Tigress's fault, and that makes them Artemis's fault, too.

Even though Artemis wants to drop to her knees and hold her friend tight, and help him stop the bleeding, and whisper in his ear that everything will be okay, and get him to the med-bay just down the hallway and apologize a hundred times, she can't.

She can't do any of that. She can't do anything to help him.

Artemis is trapped and snagged in this deceit. Under the watchful eye of Deathstroke, she isn't allowed to do anything Tigress wouldn't do, say anything Tigress wouldn't say. The smallest flinch or hesitation could reveal both her and Kaldur. Her orange and black costume and the magic charm around her neck that hides her true appearance feel too tight and suffocating.

Tigress watches and nods at Deathstroke in approval.

* * *

It's a smart plan. Take away the leader and the rest will fall into disarray—struggling, disoriented, confused, lost. Easy to pick off one by one, or even in one fell swoop. They won't pose much of a threat.

This is what she has been dreading since she accepted the undercover mission. Fighting the Team, fighting Nightwing and M'gann and Conner. Having to hurt them to stay in character and stay hidden as the mole she is.

She and Deathstroke were sent in with Kaldur's mostly-useless memories of a since revamped security system, and a potent computer virus that did most of the work for them.

Every step of the way, Artemis hoped that they would fail. But they didn't. It was startlingly easy.

They're in the small conference room just off of the larger mission room. Nightwing is beaten, broken, and bleeding, handcuffed, and sitting slumped in a chair with barely enough energy in himself to keep from falling over, and despite all that he smirks like he has won.

"Think you're pretty smart helping the kids get away, don't you?" Deathstroke asks.

"Yeah, I kinda do."

Almost the entire Team is out on missions trying to track down the Light, but Beast Boy, Robin, and Blue Beetle were in the Cave with Nightwing when it was infiltrated. The younger ones tried to fight, they tried so hard, but they didn't stand a chance. Nightwing managed to temporarily override the virus and send Blue Beetle through the zeta tube with an unconscious, broken-armed Beast Boy and a feebly stirring, wheezing Robin.

"Pointless," Artemis says with condescension. "We weren't even here for them. We're here for you, and you alone." She hopes he gets the hint hidden in her words. That _he_ is their target.

"I figured that out, thanks," he says coolly.

"So you didn't want to let the kids act as your shield," Deathstroke says. He points his sword at Nightwing's chest, as if to point out how defenseless he is now. No utility belt, no escrima sticks, no gloves or boots to retrieve hidden tools and weapons from. "How noble of you."

Nightwing gives Deathstroke a weak sliver of a grin. There's red on his teeth. "What can I say? This is between you and me, Slade."

"It is. And you're the one that started it." He lifts Nightwing's chin up with the flat of the blade, the sharp tip just pressing against his throat. "Told you it wasn't over. I don't forget, Grayson."

Deathstroke leaves to take care of phase two—the setting of time-delayed bombs throughout the Cave that will leave a gaping crater in the mountain—and Tigress is tasked with guarding Nightwing to keep him from making any attempts to escape, although with his injuries any attempt will be futile. He can't even stand on his own.

Tigress waits until the door is closed. Then she waits longer, just to be sure.

Nightwing is looking right at her and smiling. She almost forgot that he can see her as she actually is.

This has gone too far already. Artemis is stepping forward and reaching into a pocket on her costume for a lockpick, but Nightwing stops her with just his eyes, which are harsh and intensely blue. The smile on his face vanishes.

"No, don't," he whispers sternly. It's his leader voice.

"I can help you get free, get to safety."

"You can't. It'll be on your head. I'll wait—" A wave of pain must be hitting him, because he clenches his eyes shut for a moment and takes a long, shaky breath through his nose before he can continue. "—til later, when there's others around to take the blame. We can't blow your cover."

"You can't be serious."

"I am."

"But you're—"

"I'll be fine. Think about it: if you spring me right now, Kaldur's going to be in deep trouble. We can't warn him in time."

Artemis chews on her lip, desperately trying to think of a solution, a way out of this, but there is none. Both of them are stuck.

She may as well be handcuffed like him, because the identity of Tigress has her just as trapped. She's hesitant to even touch him; if she gets more blood on her hands she'll need to come up with excuses to explain why to Deathstroke. They're alone, and still she has to keep her distance.

"I get why he did it," Nightwing says quietly.

Deathstroke took the mission for the money and the chance to get revenge on Nightwing, but Artemis doesn't think that's what he's talking about. "What?"

Nightwing lets out a choked cough of pain that sounds so awful—rattling and hoarse—that Artemis feels a sympathetic twinge in her own chest. "I always thought he was so stupid for it, but now I understand."

"What are you talking about?"

"Kaldur. The… _unh…_ simulation."

"That?" Artemis asks, raising her eyebrows in disbelief and worrying that Nightwing's getting loopy from blood loss. "That's ancient history."

"No. No, it's not. It's _our_ history. It's us." Nightwing is talking slowly, carefully, trying not to aggravate the injuries to his ribs. "They're going to be so mad at me for making them leave, like I was at Kaldur. But I couldn't let them…" He trails off and just breathes for a minute, like it's the hardest thing in the world. "Slade is after me, not them, and he never would've given up… and…"

"And what?"

"I'm responsible for them. I was the oldest. I had to…"

Artemis fails to comprehend how Nightwing could ever be the oldest out of anyone when she still thinks of him as that laughing thirteen-year-old Robin. No matter how much he grows and matures, to her he'll forever be the youngest. And that's why it's so difficult to watch him like this.

"Will you tell Kaldur that I understand now?" Nightwing asks.

"_You_ tell him," she insists sharply, maybe a bit too sharply. But she isn't going to accept defeatism. She refuses to be his final messenger.

"I didn't mean it like _that_," Nightwing says, and he even has the gall to roll his eyes like she's overreacting. "It's just that you'll see him first, you know? I'm probably not going to die. They went to all this trouble of hiring Deathstroke to fetch me. I'm sure they've got something else planned first."

Artemis honestly has no idea what they're going to do with Nightwing. She and Deathstroke have their orders to drop him off for transport, but beyond that it's out of her hands. They might keep him prisoner like Lagoon Boy, but he doesn't have powers so she doesn't know why they would want him. They might use him as a bargaining chip. They might interrogate him. Or… they might just kill him.

If Deathstroke doesn't kill him first. Artemis is worried that the mercenary will decide to throw the mission out the window and fulfill his personal vendetta.

"What's the deal between you and Deathstroke?" she asks. "Why does he have such a grudge?"

"Every villain has a bone to pick with me. I have a reputation."

"I know there's a story."

"We crossed paths when I took time off from Robin. One of my first real accomplishments as Nightwing was messing with a job of his in Blüdhaven. Thought foiling Deathstroke would show Batman I wasn't a kid anymore." He grimaces at the memory, or maybe the pain in his ribs is flaring up again. "Things got a little out of hand, and now…"

"He knows your identity." _Grayson_. When she first heard Deathstroke use that name while they were going over the mission plan her mind started reeling in shock—she almost dropped the papers she was holding—but she forced it to snap back into the Tigress mindset. She can't afford reactions. Even now, she's making herself feel numb to the revelation. "Dick… I had a hunch, but I was never sure. You were misleading."

"Heh. Yeah, that was kind of the point," he says in a tired voice. He looks aside moodily. "You weren't supposed to find out like this. It was supposed to be a lot funnier. I don't even have the picture with me. Punchline's ruined."

"We can laugh about it later, then." _If there is a later_. The morbid thought crosses her mind before she can stop it. "Come on, there has to be something I can do," she urges.

"There isn't." His voice is quieter, nearly a mumble, and his head is hanging. She wonders how far away he is from passing out. "Just don't give up on the mission, okay? You're doing a really good job."

Artemis reaches out and touches the side of his face gently with her gloved hand, needing to do something Tigress wouldn't. Needing to feel like Artemis for just a second.

"Maybe too good."

* * *

Later, long after she and Deathstroke deliver Nightwing to the Light's transport crew, once Artemis is back on Black Manta's sub, Kaldur stops her in the corridor with bad news that he delivers with a carefully composed, cold and frustrated expression: Nightwing deceived his guards, got a distress signal out to the Team, and was rescued less than an hour later. The bombs were found and defused. The mission was a complete failure.

She remembers what Dick asked her to tell Kaldur, but she can't do it. Not now, because they're out in the open. Not today, because his facade is already so close to cracking and she doesn't want to make it worse by talking about their friends that they both miss so much it aches. She sees the flicker in his eyes when he talks about how Nightwing was unfortunately saved.

When she's alone in her room on the sub and sitting on her hard bed, she lets the tears of relief roll down her face and tries not to think about what might happen next time she crosses paths with one of her friends.


End file.
